A Professional Challenge
by friendofkara
Summary: Cat Grant needs to let Kara Danvers know that she knows that her assistant is Supergirl. Yet she can't risk losing the Girl of Steel as a CatCo exclusive news source. Can she solve this problem? An AU take on the aftermath of season 1's "Hostile Takeover."
1. The Challenge

As her Security people escorted Dirk Armstrong off the floor, out of the building, and into the waiting arms of the NCPD, Cat Grant called to her assistant.

"Keira."

"Yes, Miss Grant?"

"Cancel everything on my schedule for this afternoon, and fit the appointments in over the rest of this week and early next week."

"Yes, Miss Grant. Is something wrong?"

"No, Keira. I just need some time to process this. Don't put any calls through; I won't see anyone, and, unless the NCPD needs anything more from me about Dirk, don't interrupt me for anything, except I'll need you to bring me my lunch at one."

"What would you like for your lunch?"

"A salad and a cheeseburger."

"Yes, Miss Grant."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOO

For twenty minutes, Cat Grant just sat at her desk and let the moment sink in. An hour ago, she had thought she would have to say goodbye to the dream that propelled the last twenty years of her life. But now, she was still the CEO of the company she had founded, a media conglomerate that was making a difference. An hour ago, she had thought she had failed in her life's mission. But now she was still on track to achieving it. For twenty minutes she enjoyed the moment.

Then she put her victory aside to consider something else.

Her assistant, Kara Danvers, was Supergirl.

She knew it.

In fact, she had known it for a few weeks.

Ever since Lesley Willis had tried to kill her.

When Supergirl had caught Cat's falling elevator, then freed her by lifting her through the emergency hatch in the elevator's roof, her eyes had been less than a foot from Supergirl's face for almost thirty seconds.

She had noticed the small scar that sat beside the Girl of Steel's left eyebrow.

The same scar that came and went on Kiera Danvers' face. While the girl's glasses often distracted you from it when you looked at her straight on, it was clearly visible when you looked down on it.

Just as Cat Grant did, every time she stood by Kiera's desk when her assistant was sitting down.

Which happened at least three times every day.

And really, the girl was the world's worst liar. Telling Cat that she had heard Dirk say something after the board meeting, then trying to tell Cat it was her own remark that prompted her to order Winn and James to investigate Dirk? The attempt to save herself didn't convince Cat for a second. Even if the look on her face as she stumbled through correcting her mistake didn't give her away, the matching looks on the faces of Winn and James told Cat everything she needed to know. No, Supergirl had used her super-hearing to uncover Dirk's plot. And did she really think she could hide that fact from Cat Grant?

Cat suddenly realized that she was angry. She did not like being taken for a fool.

Cat knew Kara Danvers was Supergirl. And she knew how to prove it. And she was ready to prove it, to teach Kara Danvers the essential lesson: that nobody makes Cat Grant look like a fool.

As she sat at her desk, Cat refined her strategy until she could see the whole thing play out in her mind.

She would start by putting Kara at ease by thanking her for saving her position, then mention that she had noticed how Kara had heard Dirk when that unmentionable was not in earshot. Then she'd mention the "coincidence" of Kara getting sick when the earthquake happened while Supergirl was missing and then the next coincidence that Kara had not been on the floor when Supergirl had arrived to foil Livewire's first attack, and the fact that her assistant had taken it personally when Cat had named the newly arrived heroine "Supergirl." Cat could just see it. She would move closer and closer to the girl, like a big cat hunting its prey and, for the climax, she would ask Kara to take off her glasses. And the scar would be revealed.

With that detail, she knew she could force the girl to admit her identity, and she would have the scoop of the century. With one story, she could prove that she took a back seat to nobody – and especially Lois Lane – when it came to superhero coverage.

She could just see it.

It would be a real life repeat of the cult film _Bambi Meets Godzilla_ all over again.

With Cat Grant in the role of Godzilla.

And Kiera, her assistant, the kindest, most caring person Cat had ever met, in the role of Bambi.

She could just see it.

And she felt a little sick at the thought.

Then her professional conscience raised a question. Although Kiera was taking her for a fool, did she have the moral and professional right to publish Supergirl's identity?

Cat knew that the relevant section of the American journalists' code specified that she must: "Realize that private people have a greater right to control information about themselves than public figures and others who seek power, influence or attention." And that she must also: "Weigh the consequences of publishing or broadcasting personal information."

Although Supergirl was a public figure, it was clear that neither Supergirl nor Kara Danvers was seeking power, influence or attention. In essence, the girl was a philanthropist who wanted to keep her "donations" anonymous – even if they were a bit more spectacular than most.

And was the girl really playing her for a fool? Keira was the world's worst actress, and if she had not been telling the truth in their first meeting when she promised complete devotion as Cat's next assistant, Cat did not know the truth when she heard it. And then Cat remembered that when Supergirl saved flight 237, she hadn't worn her costume: the witnesses said the flying woman had been wearing dark jeans and a dark top. The logical inference was simple: when Keira had interviewed for the CatCo job, she had no plans to come out as Supergirl. For some reason, she had planned to go on keeping her powers hidden just as she had been doing, perhaps, for years.

Suddenly, Cat's memories of her first meeting with Keira played back in her mind. She remembered that before Keira had made that promise to serve her with total commitment with a peculiar earnestness in her voice, she had looked at the video where the newsfeed of some major forest fires was being broadcast. And then that memory was juxtaposed with her first interview with Supergirl at the point when she had asked Supergirl, "So why are we just hearing from you now? Where were you during the forest fires last September that killed eight people?" She had noticed at the time that her question had pushed one of Supergirl's hot buttons.

Now, she had an idea of which button it was. In retrospect, Keira felt guilty about signing as Cat Grant's assistant rather than helping those hurt or killed by the fires.

But, unlike the fires, flight 237 had brought Supergirl out of hiding. Clearly, there was something about that plane that had forced the young Kryptonian's hand. What was it? Cat put that question aside for the moment, to return to the question of whether or not she could publish.

When she did, her CEO's pragmatism added its' two cents worth. Even if she could force herself to publicly out Kiera as Supergirl, she'd not only lose the best assistant she'd ever had; she'd be effectively breaking her word to the same assistant she had just promised a job for life to: less than two hours before.

But more, if she outed Kara, she knew that she could not expect Supergirl to keep her informal deal to be a CatCo exclusive news source. Most likely, she would sign on with the local correspondent for the Daily Planet, and Cat could easily imagine how National City's newspaper readers would respond to their heroine's shift in allegiance – and how CatCo's Board would respond to the loss of Supergirl stories, readers, and reprint and advertising revenues.

To say she would be lucky to keep her job would be an understatement.

And then, she realized that she faced an additional consideration.

It was thanks to Keira that Cat was still the CEO of CatCo. It was thanks to her assistant that Cat had not wasted twenty years of her life. It was thanks to Keira that Cat Grant could continue to drive the bleeding edge of the reinvention of the news business that the internet and social media had wrought.

Cat Grant owed her assistant. Big time.

Which was a major complication.

And then, she remembered that she owed Supergirl her life twice over.

Which was an even bigger complication.

For the next few minutes, Cat considered the debts she owed both Keira and Supergirl.

They were two deeply personal debts.

And she doubted that she could ever repay them.

But that didn't mean that Cat Grant wasn't about to try. But she also needed to do it in a way that let Kara Danvers know that she had not pulled the wool over her eyes, yet without causing the girl to take her Supergirl exclusives elsewhere. How could she do that?

By the time Cat had got that far, Kara had brought in her lunch order.

And Cat's anger had drained away.

Because Cat had figured out what she needed to do.

Now, she could begin to make her plans.


	2. Reporters Love Google

As the afternoon wore on, Kara Danvers sat, wondered, and worried. Her boss was sitting motionless at her desk except for periods when she would place a phone call, get up and pace her office or walk out to the balcony and pace there. She had seen that pattern many times before. So had every one of her executive floor colleagues. They even had a name for it: "Cat's on the prowl." Cat Grant was on the trail of a big story and was working out how to get it.

Kara Danvers had no idea what story her boss was working on. But she worried that it might have more than a little to do with her mistake in answering Cat's question when James, Lucy, and Winn had arrived to save the day.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"So," Cat thought, "Let's begin at the beginning."

What was the best contribution she could make to helping Supergirl?

The answer was easy. She had to help Supergirl hide her identity better. Kiera couldn't afford to make any mistakes in this area, certainly not around someone like Lucy Lane, whose intellect, Cat knew, was every bit as sharp as her cheekbones. She had seen Lucy stiffen to attention when Kiera had stumbled through her answer of why she had investigated Dirk. One more mistake like that and Kiera would have Lucy Lane knowing her secret.

So how could Cat mentor Kiera to do a better job of keeping her secret? After a few minutes thought, Cat had the beginning of a plan.

She began with a couple of phone calls. Her first call was to the National City Police Commissioner to get his opinion of Supergirl, which was, of course, favorable. In the course of the call, she asked if he had offered the Girl of Steel a job. "Yes, I did," Commissioner Stennis replied, "but she turned me down. She said she doesn't want to do this work professionally and she enjoys the job she has too much to give it up." After hanging up, she called the Special Agent-in-Charge of the local FBI office, asked the same questions and got essentially the same responses.

With that detail covered, Cat was free to start from the other end. What did she really know about Keira?

With her tablet open, she called up the girl's Employee Information Form. Her emergency contact was Alex Danvers: the relationship: sister. Cat thought back to their talk after Livewire had nearly killed her at CatCo. She remembered Keira saying her sister was Alex, and her foster mother was Eliza, and she clearly loved both of them.

She entered Alex Danvers into Google and looked at the results.

The most significant items came halfway down the page. They were two newspaper articles, some years old, from the Midvale News, which seemed to be a far more competent small town newspaper than most. An Alexandra Danvers from Midvale had won a full scholarship to take a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Harvard. The article mentioned that the prodigiously young Ms. Danvers (she already had her Master's at 19) was following in her father's and mother's footsteps as both parents (named in the article as the late Jeremiah and Eliza Danvers) were also eminent biochemists. There was also a picture of the young scholarship winner with her mother and sister.

So she had the right Alex and Eliza, thought Cat, as she saw Kiera standing in the picture. But when she looked at Alexandra Danvers, her eyes narrowed. She had seen this woman before. But where? None of the other pages on Google were helpful. There were links to some papers that young Ms. Danvers had written some years earlier while she was in university, but none of them was less than three years old. There was nothing to indicate what Alex Danvers was doing now. She was not on the faculty of National City University or Stanford. She also was not on Facebook or LinkedIn. That raised Cat's eyebrows. Keeping invisible online took some doing these days.

She then checked the second article. Dating from a year later, it announced that the prodigy had achieved her Ph.D. in one year (impressive) and had returned to take a second Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from her mother, who (according to the article) was one of the leading American figures in the field.

Next, Cat Googled Eliza Danvers and saw the same Midvale News articles. But she also discovered that Dr. Eliza Danvers was the Emerita Professor of Biochemistry at Redwood University's Midvale campus. She went to the University's website and checked out the woman's Faculty Biography. It seemed impressive, with a huge number of awards, papers, journal articles and conference presentations to her credit, but Cat was no scientist, and she couldn't translate the jargon. She copied the bio to a new file and saved it. She checked the Redwood Graduates page and discovered, as she had expected, that Alexandra Danvers had taken her second Ph.D. in only one year. She then checked the Redwood University Faculty list, but Dr. Alexandra Danvers wasn't working there. Stymied for the moment, she then left a message for the Tribune's freelance science writer to call her, and while she waited, she placed a call to the editor of the Midvale News.

When she had the man on the line, Cat mentioned that she was planning a series of profiles of eminent American women scientists, that she was considering including Dr. Eliza Danvers, and could she trouble Mr. Lawrence for some background information on the lady?

As Cat had expected from his articles, Jonathan Lawrence was the typical small town newspaper owner/editor. He knew everything about everybody in his town, and he was delighted to have any excuse to talk about them. And he respected Dr. Eliza Danvers immensely. She wasn't a friend, exactly, but he knew all about her.

"Dr. Jeremiah met her when they were undergrads at Stanford. Then they both went on to Harvard for their Master's degrees. After they had got those, they got married because they each had won a Ryerson Fellowship which paid for their Ph.D. studies and both of them specialized in biomedical engineering. The year after they got their degrees, two of biochemists on the Redwood faculty left and both Drs. Danvers were hired. Over the next dozen years or so they put Redwood on the map. It became, and it still is, the most popular school in the country for biomedical engineering. It was a pity Jeremiah died so young, but Eliza's like the Energizer bunny. She just keeps right on going. Of course, her kids help with that."

"Tell me about them," Cat suggested.

"Well, their eldest is Alex, and she's another prodigy. She got her Masters in biochemistry at 19, went to Harvard on a full scholarship for a Ph.D. in biochemistry, then came back to get a second Ph.D. in biomedical engineering here. She's working at in a lab at National City University. She's a real lucky lady."

"How so? Cat asked.

"Well, you know that plane that crashed in your bay the other week?"

"Flight 237?"

"That's the one. I met Eliza on the street the day after it happened. When I asked after her daughters, she told me Alex had been on the plane."

"Bingo," thought Cat. There was no way Keira wouldn't risk her secret to save her sister. She made a note to check the pictures of that story. "What about their other children?"

"They adopted another daughter, Kara. She was thirteen or so when she arrived. Sweet girl, but a little shy. Brave and caring too. She saved my daughter and granddaughter"

"Kara saved your daughter and her daughter?"

"That was just after she had arrived in town. Shelley was out driving and misjudged a curve and crashed the car not far from where a bunch of the kids were playing. Kara heard the crash, ran to the car and somehow got a door open that Shelley still swears was jammed. So they both got out safely. Good thing too, the car exploded less than a minute later."

"She still is brave and caring."

"You know Kara?" Mr. Lawrence was surprised.

"She works for me now. She's my personal assistant, and I'm glad to have her."

"I'm not surprised she's working for you, but she's absolutely wasted as your assistant. Kara told me early on that she liked to write and that she was going to be a journalist. She volunteered on the high school paper, and after school, she'd come by and ask me questions about the business. So I let her hang around the office. After she caught a couple of errors in my copy, I let her cover the occasional story as the News' cub reporter. She did well. She has the eye for a story, even better than Brandon Forsythe, who also started here."

"Kara's eye is that good?" Cat interjected. Brandon Forsythe was a Tribune reporter whose knack for spotting stories was proverbial throughout American journalism.

"That good, and she can also put a story together really well," Lawrence confirmed. "For her last two years in town, I paid her on a piecework basis, and she filed at least one good story every week. It saved me from having to hire a second reporter. Be sure and give her my regards."

Cat's other line rang. "I'll do that, Mr. Lawrence. I'm sorry, but I've got to go. Thank you for speaking with me," she said as she transferred to her other line. It was her science correspondent calling back.

"Hello, Jonah. I'm thinking of doing a series of profiles of eminent American scientists who are women. I've been hearing for some time about how more women are going into the sciences these days, and it occurred to me that they might need role models."

"That's true, Miss Grant, and we do have some good lady scientists who'd be great role models. There's Barbara McClintock who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for her work in genetics, but she's dead. There's Mae Jemison who was a NASA mission specialist on one of the shuttle missions and now heads up BioSentient Corp. to commercialize NASA Biofeedback techniques, and her foundation made the winning bid for further work on the 100-year Starship project. Then there's Shirley Ann Jackson who was the first Afro-American woman to take a doctorate at MIT. She's now the President of Rensselaer Polytechnic, a great technology university. Then we have Elizabeth Blackburn, President of the Salk Institute and another Nobel Prize winner. She was the co-discoverer of telomerase, the enzyme that replenishes your telomeres, which protect the chromosomes in your cells. And she's right here in California."

"Any other Californians we could add to the list?" Cat asked.

"Yes, indeed. Eliza Danvers," came the reply.

"Who's she?"

"She's professor of biochemistry and biomedical engineering up at a little college four hours north of here, but she's the bleeding edge of work in her field. When bio-medical engineers speak of Steven Hawking, they call him the Eliza Danvers of physics. She developed a whole bunch of major surgical innovations including the first indigenous endovascular coronary stent that's put her up for the Nobel Prize this year. She and her late husband made Redwood is the most popular school for biomedical engineering in the country. Harvard, Stanford and MIT fight to take her rejects. Greg Bastin, the Chair of Bioengineering at Harvard tried to get her to move there for over a decade after her husband died. But she refused, even though Greg offered to double her salary. She said she wanted her girls to grow up at home."

"Well, those five will be a good start. You can have up to two thousand words for each profile."

"When do you want them?"

"The first for next weekend's Tribune and the rest to follow weekly."

"OK, Miss Grant, I'll get right to it."

Cat hung up the phone, called up pictures and video of flight 237's passengers taken after the group had been taken to shore. In less than a minute, she found a video with Alex Danvers standing in the background as a journalist interviewed a talkative Swiss tourist whose return flight had been cut short.

The first thing Cat noticed was the difference between the two women. The Swiss tourist grinned from ear to ear. Her talk was light and happy. For her, the crash had a happy ending. Alex Danvers, on the other hand, stood tense and stiff, staring, still deeply shocked, into the middle distance. Clearly, for her, the crisis of the flight had not ended.

And Cat Grant suddenly realized where she had seen the woman before. She was the FBI agent who had led the cleanup crew after Supergirl had finally taken out Livewire with the help of a water main.

What the hell was a double Ph.D. in biochemistry and biomedical engineering doing running around as an FBI agent?

And why hadn't Keira mentioned her time at the Midvale News on her resume?

A deeply puzzled Cat Grant walked out of her office, let Keira know she'd be back in an hour or so and walked over to the office of her Art Director.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

One of the duties of Cat Grant's assistant was to track her employer's contacts. So her assistant's landline had been set up so that whenever Cat was on the phone, the number and often the identity of the other party showed on her assistant's phone display. Seeing Cat calling the NCPD Commissioner was not unexpected, given what had happened earlier in the day, but her next call to the FBI left Kara puzzled. Kara knew that Dirk's attempted coup was not an FBI case: the Securities and Exchange Commission would say anything that needed to be said federally on that subject. But why had Cat called the Midvale News? And why two calls with Jonah Blake, the Tribune's science guy? And where was Cat off to now?

Kara Danvers sat, wondered, and worried.


	3. Gathering Background Information

"Good afternoon, Mr. Olsen," Cat said as she walked into the Art Department office.

"Hello Miss Grant," her surprised Art Director replied. "What brings you here? I could have come to your office."

"I needed to stretch my legs, and I need your help with a personal issue I have to deal with. It's not CatCo business, Jimmy, so are you enough ahead of your deadlines that you can afford to take a half hour break and go for a coffee with me?"

James Olsen raised his eyebrows. Cat Grant almost never called him by his first name and even less often by his nickname. When she did, it was always at off-duty events like office parties when they were talking about the time they had worked together at the Daily Planet. Cat inviting him for coffee was unprecedented: Cat calling him Jimmy told him that something really big was up.

"Sure, Dave and I are just finishing up the layouts, but he can do the rest on his own."

The two of them walked out, and Cat led James to the main elevator bank. James' eyebrows rose again. Cat Grant never used the public elevators.

At her desk, Kara was even more puzzled as she overheard the conversation and noticed the direction in which they walked.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Weber's was a small coffee shop two blocks further away from CatCo than Noonan's. Cat knew that not too many of her staffers patronized it and so it was there that she led James Olsen. After securing a table in an isolated corner, she turned to her employee.

"Sorry about the unusual approach, but as I said I have a problem and I need your help. I also need to ask you to keep our discussion just between ourselves."

"Miss Grant, you've got me worried here. But yes, it's between us."

"For this conversation, it's Cat, Jimmy and there's no need to worry. Here's the situation: as you know, Supergirl saved my life twice when Lesley Willis became Livewire and attacked us in the office."

James nodded. "I remember."

"So I have a tremendous debt I owe that young woman."

"If she's anything at all like her cousin, and I suspect that she is," James commented, "she'll never call you on it."

"I think you're right, but that's not the point. I want to help her, and it has occurred to me that the best way I could do that is to give her some training on how to deal with the press. While I hope she'll continue to use CatCo as her primary media outlet, I also know that sooner or later, she'll have to take questions from other news organizations. And based on the interview I had with her, I don't think she will handle such a situation as well as she needs to. Clearly, she's not a natural liar; she's a nice young girl who has grown up being truthful, not evasive, and she's not used to dealing with nasty, pushy and aggressive journalists. I'm afraid she could unwittingly hurt herself unless she gets some training in how to cope with the press. Would you agree?"

"And you're planning to give her some coaching on that?"

"Yes."

"Then yes, I think you could help her. But where do I come into the picture, aside from sending her a message that you want to meet her?"

"I need some deep background information from you."

"Me? About what?"

"I'm not going to ask if you know or have guesses about Superman's secret identity," Cat replied, "but I need your point of view on what considerations are involved in Superman's - or Supergirl's - decision to live that way."

"To keep their private lives secret and do their public work under a Super alias?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because one of the things a clever journalist will do is try to uncover Supergirl's secret identity. It would be a huge story if somebody got it and it would wreck her private life, and I want to help her forestall that."

"OK. I've never talked with either of them about it, but tell me your guesses, and if I can help you, I will."

"The obvious first reason is that they need jobs to pay their bills and they couldn't get any work done if they came to work in super suits."

"Right."

"A second reason would be that they don't want to endanger people in their private life who could get hurt if it became known who they are. I remember that Reactron attacked Supergirl once he learned they were cousins because he wanted to hurt Superman by hurting her."

"Right again," James said, "but that's not all there is to it. Lois Lane's been kidnapped five times, and I've been kidnapped twice because the kidnappers thought we were close to Superman and they could manipulate him by threatening us. You might want to watch out for how many interviews with Supergirl you publish under your byline. You don't want you or your boy to get kidnapped because somebody thinks they could get at Supergirl through you."

"That's something I hadn't considered at all. Thank you."

"You're welcome. But there's more to it than that I think."

"What do you mean?" Cat asked.

"For at least twenty-five years, Superman had every reason to think that he was the only Kryptonian left in the universe.

"You said at least twenty-five years. How do you know that?"

"It's a guess based on your interview with Supergirl. Supergirl sounded as if she had been holding herself back from coming out into the open until she was ready. That suggested that she's been here for a while. She's obviously not new to earth – your interview showed that she's picked up on some of our cultural considerations, she's definitely something of a feminist. So I'm guessing she's been living incognito here for at least ten years, and that puts her arrival at about five years after Superman started being the man of steel or about twenty-five years after his stated arrival here."

"I see."

"Now, however, the situation has changed, but not significantly. While there are two Kryptonians on earth, they live in different cities. Kryptonians are like humans: they are social creatures. They need social lives; they need friends. But it's very difficult for Superman to have a friendship with an earth person as Superman. People treat him differently. I treat him differently, his other friends treat him differently. They're not normal friendships. He's different: we know it, and he knows we know it. So he's isolated. All alone. And that's not good for anyone. So when Superman goes to work in his secret identity, his friendships are normal friendships. And that's what he needs. And I'll bet the same thing is true for Supergirl."

"That's an amazing insight. How did you get it?"

"It's an inference from something a friend of his once said."

"I see. But what I can't figure out is why they don't join the police."

"Who would their paycheques get made out to?" James asked.

"Ouch," said Cat. "That would just be a way of exposing their secret identity, wouldn't it?"

"That's one reason. But you might ask her if there are any others."

"Thanks, that's what I needed to know. Can you get a message to Supergirl asking her to meet me any evening this week?"

"I'll get right on it, and I'll let you know as soon as I hear anything."

"Thanks, Jimmy. One more thing."

"What's that?"

"Be sure you tell Supergirl the following items: that the meeting will not be an interview, that nothing from the meeting will ever be published, that I don't want any information from her: I want to offer her something, and that you think she might be helped from my offer. If she asks what I'm offering, tell her that I'd asked you to keep my confidence on the matter."

"I'll do that, Miss Grant."

With that, they left the coffee shop and walked back to CatCo.


	4. Preparing the Way

It was nearly five-thirty when Cat Grant put her drink on the balcony railing at her assistant's cough and turned to meet the other woman as Kara walked towards her.

"Oh, Kiera." she said as the other woman laid a file with the final paperwork for her official complaint against Dirk Armstrong that would formalize the charges the man would face on the railing next to her.

"Another week. Another crisis averted. Thanks to you," she continued, then picked up the file and signed it off. As she turned and handed the papers back to her assistant, she purred: "My secret weapon; my guardian angel."

The younger woman tried to wave the praise away. "It was nothing."

"No," Cat said, "it was something. It was something extraordinary, and we need to talk about it." She gestured to the two plush chairs that sat beside them.

When both women were seated, Cat continued, "You saved me from a potentially very embarrassing situation with Adam. Equally, if not more important, you saved my job as CEO of CatCo, which is a position I wouldn't be in right now if you hadn't broadened your search and found Dirk's email. So I not only owe my job to you, but I owe you the fact that I can continue to realize the dream that I have given more than twenty years of my life to. That's a huge debt I owe you, and I won't forget it. Not to mention the fact that I'd already promised you a job with me for as long as you want it even before you pulled Dirk's email out from under your cape."

Again, the other woman tried to wave the praise away, this time with a gesture. But this time, there was an odd, startled look on her face.

"It's only a metaphor, Keira. Have you never seen a magician perform before?"

"No, Miss Grant, I haven't."

"Well, when you get a chance to see one, take it. They often use their capes as props, and they have a habit of causing things to appear from under them that couldn't possibly be there. My favorite was when the magician flattened his cape on a table, and suddenly a flock of pigeons flew out from under it."

"Oh," said her obviously relieved assistant, "I see."

"So, although I do not like repeating myself, let me reiterate: you have a job with me for as long as you want it. Also, I want you to understand that if anything, ever, happens to you or to people you care about that you can't handle from your own resources, just let me know, and I will do everything I can to help."

"Miss Grant, that's . . ."

"It's what I want to do, Keira" her boss overrode her. "And I will be very hurt if I ever find out that you went through a situation where you should have called me, and you didn't take advantage of my offer. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, Miss Grant."

"Good. But . . ."

Kara's phone interrupted Miss Grant mid-word. Kara looked at it, then looked up.

"Excuse me, Miss Grant, I have to take this. It's my sister and she never calls me at work."

"Go ahead."

"Hello Alex, what's up?"

Cat saw Keira's face stiffen. Then she said, already standing, "I'll be there as soon as I can."

"I'm sorry, Miss Grant, but I've got to leave right now. Family emergency."

"Go, and remember my offer."

"I hope I won't need it: good night, I'll see you tomorrow."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Three hours later, Cat was seated on a chair of her penthouse balcony having a last drink when she saw Supergirl hovering nearby.

"Good evening, Supergirl. Would you like to join me? It seems inhospitable to leave you hovering out there."

"Thank you, Miss Grant, I will," said the Girl of Steel as she touched down on the balcony and sat in the other chair.

"I'm surprised you got here so quickly after taking on whoever those people were who attacked Lord Technologies. I saw the report."

"Well, unfortunately, most of them got away, and there wasn't anything else for me to do. So I was doing a city patrol to wind down when I saw you on your balcony and thought I'd drop by. Mr. Olsen said you wanted to see me and he thought it was important. My cousin has considerable faith in Mr. Olsen's judgment.

"What exactly did Mr. Olsen tell you?"

"He said that our meeting will not be an interview, that nothing from it will ever be published, and that you don't want any information from me. Instead, you have something you want to offer me that Mr. Olsen thinks I might find helpful. I asked if he could be more specific, but he said you'd asked him not to say anything about it. So I'm curious."

"Do you know the news meaning of the term 'deep background'?"

"Mr. Olsen mentioned it when we talked. He said that this conversation would be beyond deep background and when I asked what that was he said that deep background information can never be used in an article but is given for the sole purpose of informing the reporter."

"That's correct, but he was also correct that what we say here will go even deeper than that. I want you to understand that nothing said this evening will ever be published or even used by me in any way. Not that I expect that you will give me anything publishable, or even anything whatsoever if that's your choice. What I'm going to do won't inform me of anything. Instead, I want to help you, and I'll do it by talking to you."

"Why do you want to help me, Miss Grant?"

"Have you heard or seen any news reports since noon today?"

Supergirl blinked at the apparent non-sequitur.

"Yes, Miss Grant, I did. I caught the 3:30 CatCo hourly update. Congratulations on finding your hacker."

"That wasn't me; that was my assistant, Keira who did that. On her own initiative, she broadened her assignment to investigate Dirk Armstrong, and that's why she was able to save my job for me. When somebody does something that is that important to you, the conventional words "thank you" seem insufficient. So I've put actions behind my words: no matter what happens, Keira has a job with me for as long as she wants it. And I've also told her that she can call me if she ever faces a situation she can't meet with her own resources, and I'll do everything in my power to help."

"That's very generous, Miss Grant, if I may say so."

"It's the least I could do. But you will recall the incident with Livewire?"

"Of course."

"While I thanked you at the time for saving my life at the time, I would also like to back my words with actions, in the same way as I have already done in the matter of my assistant. I won't insult you by offering you a job, but I do say the same to you as I said to Keira: that if you ever encounter a problem that you can't resolve using your own resources, feel free to ask me for any help in my power."

"Thank you, Miss Grant. I hope I never have to take you up on that, but I'll call you if I need you."

"In addition, I'd like to offer you something else. I think I can help you do a better job as Supergirl in at least one respect. It's not precisely the most natural thing for a journalist to do, and there's no way I can accept a job as your press agent, even if you were hiring one, but I can coach you in the basic principles of how to deal with the press more effectively. Oh, I know you are already giving CatCo your exclusives, and I hope you'll continue to do that, but sooner or later you'll have to take questions from other reporters and it might be helpful if you had some preparation for the experience. And I think I can do this without asking any additional information from you, whatsoever. Do you think that having me coach you in this area would be helpful for you?"

"How could you do that?"

"We'd start by walking through the text of your first interview with me, and I'll show you just how much you said without realizing it and how many pointers to lines of investigation you left behind you for an alert reporter to follow, and how you can minimize doing that in future. I'll also show you what can be inferred from some of your actions, and then I'll show you how you can minimize the pointers you leave. Does that sound useful?"

"That's very interesting, but I'd like to think about it for a day or so, Miss Grant, if that's all right with you."

"That's fine. You know how to reach me once you've made up your mind. But until I hear from you, I'll keep all my evenings free for the next two weeks. Will that work? And if you like, I can order in dinner for us. Just tell Mr. Olsen the name of your favorite restaurant. "

"I'll let you know through Mr. Olsen as soon as I decide. Bye for now, Miss Grant."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"Good morning, Miss Grant," said Kara Danvers the next morning, as she handed her boss the first latte of the day.

"Hello, Keira," replied her boss, as she accepted her latte. "How is your sister?"

"She's fine, Miss Grant, thank you for asking."

"Do I have anything to do before the morning meeting?"

"No, Miss Grant."

"Then come into my office, Keira. There was something else I wanted to say to you before we were interrupted last night."

The two women moved into the executive office and Cat indicated that Kara should sit down.

"You've been my assistant now for over a year. You`ve done well. Because of that, I`d like to offer you a new job. But before I do, though, I need to tell you that there may well be a bit of danger involved although I`ll be taking some steps to minimize it."

"I see. What's the job, Miss Grant?"

"It's something we should have done already. We need a dedicated Supergirl writer, and I think you could do a good job in that assignment."

"Why me? I've never written a story for CatCo, and this will be a plum assignment."

"There are a couple of reasons. First, I spoke to Jonathan Lawrence at the Midvale News yesterday."

"I saw that you'd called him and I wondered why."

"I've commissioned Jonah Blake to do a series of profiles of influential women in the sciences who can serve as role models. One of the people he mentioned as a possibility for the series was a name I recognized. It was that of Dr. Eliza Danvers, who apparently is a national star in bio-engineering. So after Googling her and seeing some Midvale News articles come up, I called Mr. Lawrence for some background information, in the course of which he mentioned both you and your sister."

"Oh?"

"He says to give you his regards, and he also told me that you have a better eye for a story than Brandon Forsythe who also started with him."

"Mr. Lawrence said that?" Keira was stunned.

"He did. And after reading all your stories in the News last night, I can see why he thought so. And why he thought you knew how to put stories together. So you're not exactly a novice, Keira. You are a fully professional reporter who will be starting out on a new beat. And since we haven't had a Supergirl writer before, nobody is familiar with this beat. Also, you earned the shot when you spotted the possibility that Dirk was involved and took action on it. That's the mark of a good reporter. Why didn't you put your time at the Midvale News on your resume?"

"It was only a part-time high school job at a local newspaper."

"Whose standards are as good or better than many metropolitan dailies. And that's why I have no hesitation in offering you this job. And you must have known that mentioning your experience there would get you favorable consideration when you applied here."

"I was afraid that you would send me directly to the Tribune rather than having me working for you. I wanted to learn from you. I thought that would be a good start to my career."

"I see. Well, in hindsight, no real harm done. But don't sell yourself short like that again."

"You mentioned an element of danger, Miss Grant. What did you mean?" There was an intent frown on the girl's face.

"Yes, I did. James Olsen has reminded me that it can be very dangerous for someone to become too close to Supergirl in the public eye, so I've thought of a way to minimize the danger for you. We're going to think up a few pseudonyms for you to write under as well as your own name. That way, no one reporter will be seen as being too close to Supergirl and HR will be told to confirm that you are the writer of all the stories published under the pseudonyms, should you ever need a reference to that effect."

The frown was still on Keira's face.

Her boss decided to find out why.

"Keira, you're getting a position that every reporter at CatCo would give their right arm for, yet you don't look happy. What's wrong?"

"I think I still have a lot to learn from you, Miss Grant."

"You won't stop working for me. The pseudonyms will be useless if everybody in CatCo knows you're the one writing all the stories. So, as far as almost all of the staff will know, you will still be working for me as my Executive Assistant, and you really will be doing that some of the time. You'll resolve crises and run major errands, and you'll supervise the other assistant that we'll hire to keep my schedule, handle the phones and messages and do the basic event planning and back you up when a Supergirl story hits, and you have to go and get it. And just to ensure you make the grade, I'll be editing your stories personally, so the desk editors don't mess you up."

"That would be great, Miss Grant. When do I start?"

"You're on three months' probation starting now. But you need to wear your executive assistant hat for a moment and write a job description for the new junior assistant and deliver it to HR. Then run to supplies and get a reporter's notebook. But before you start all that, I have one question."

"Oh?"

"When I saw your family pictured in the Midvale News, I recognized your sister. Mr. Lawrence said she's working in a lab here in National City. But I've seen her. She was the FBI agent who led the team that took Lesley away the night Supergirl knocked her out with a water main. And I also recognized her from two news reports I saw recently. She was one of the passengers on Flight 237, which explains why you've been so strongly in Supergirl's corner from the very beginning. And she was on the SWAT team that fought whoever those people were who attacked Lord Technologies last night. "

Her assistant was obviously thinking very carefully as Cat asked the question she had been leading up to.

"So why does a double Ph.D. in biochemistry and biomedicine run around as an FBI agent?"

"She's kind of a consultant, actually," Keira replied. "I don't think I can be more specific because I'm not quite sure of all the details. But they call her when they're facing something a little unusual in the biomedical line, like Livewire. And they called her in last night, for the Lord Tech incident apparently, which meant I had to fill in for her for doing something else."

"Apparently?"

"Yes, Miss Grant. Alex doesn't talk much about her work and she talks even less about these calls."

"I see. Thank you, Keira. Off you go, chop-chop."

000000000000

A few minutes later Cat Grant's phone rang. It was James Olsen.

"I've received a message from Supergirl. She's taking you up on your offer. Is tomorrow night at six still open?"

"Yes. Tell her I'll meet her on my office balcony."

"She also said she'd bring the dinners. She wants to know if you like Greek?"

"That will be fine. Thank you."


	5. The Moment of Truth

As Supergirl touched down on her balcony, Cat noticed that she carried two large bags with an appetizing smell.

"Hello, Miss Grant."

"Good evening, Supergirl. Where did you get the food? It smells delicious."

"A tavern called Stephos' on Eivad Street. I thought that since you said you'd be doing most of the talking, you shouldn't have to pay for your dinner as well."

"Thank you. Shall we eat first and talk later?"

"Sure."

For the next few minutes, the two women peacefully enjoyed both their meal and the precarious restfulness between them. When they had finished, Supergirl looked at the mogul.

"I suppose we should begin."

"Yes," Cat said as she handed a sheet of paper to Supergirl. "Here's a transcript of our first meeting. I'd like to start by walking you through it and telling you what was going on in my head as it happened."

"OK."

"Did you know that when you picked up my car, I was speaking to Mr. Olsen on the phone?"

"I didn't know that."

"Well, he told me that my interview with you had already started and that I should look out my window. When I did, I saw the CatCo building logo about twenty feet below me. Please don't ever do that to me again. I'm not a good flyer. So when we landed, I knew it was you, and I was a little irritated with you before I ever got out of the car. Which is why I did something that no wise reporter will ever do. "

"And that was?"

"Two things. The false awe in my voice and deliberately provoking you early in the interview before you had given me much substance. Your responses to my provocations, however, were revealing."

"How so?" Supergirl was intent, curious.

"There were three of them. Each time I provoked you, you reacted quickly, without thinking. Can you remember which of my comments produced that reaction?"

"Yes, first you asked if I wasn't on Superman's level when I told you I hadn't fully mastered freeze breath. Then, you implied I was irresponsible when you asked where I was during the September wildfires. And finally, you asked if I had plans to start a family."

"That's a good memory, you have."

"It was the first time in my life that I talked to a reporter. And I knew it would be a front page story. So I was a little nervous, and I tend to remember times I'm nervous."

"Understandably so." Miss Grant agreed. "But you need to recognize that the next step an alert reporter will take is that he or she will ask what was it about those questions that caused you to react that way. You didn't like being compared unfavorably with Superman, so you reacted with a heat vision blast. And when I asked about starting a family you again took it as an implied comparison to Superman, one you resented. And that implies that you'd been on earth for some time by that point – a point that was reinforced when you implicitly admitted you'd been on earth during last September's wildfires."

"Why did resenting the second comparison to Superman suggest to you that I'd been here for a while?"

"Your answer implied that you are a feminist and you thought I should be one. That implies that you were aware of our cultural considerations. It takes time in a new culture to come to that level of awareness. But that raises a question that someone's going to ask. From what Superman's said, we know Krypton must have exploded thirty-five years ago. But you look little more than twenty."

"If you look at my cousin, you'll notice that he doesn't look his age either. It seems Kryptonians don't visibly age as fast as humans do. So how do I avoid saying more than I want to?"

"Nice dodge, Supergirl. I was asking the implied question of how come you turned up on earth at least twenty-five years after Superman's arrival. Shouldn't you have arrived at the same time? Where have you been? But your answer illustrates a key point you should remember: while your interviewer gets to pick the questions, you get to pick the answers."

"What does that mean?"

"The best way to keep reporters from seeing when a question hits too close to home is never to react to a question but to develop the habit of always thinking though what you'll say before you answer it. A second thing you should do is to figure out the message that you want the reporter's audience to get and then stay 'on-message' if you know that term."

"I know it: I've read a few political biographies," the Girl of Steel replied.

"OK then, that's the basic lesson in dealing with what you say. If you think through what you'll say before you say it and stay on-message, usually limiting what you say to the then present incident, you should minimize the trouble you can get into by careless words. And this approach can be helpful when you're dealing with other people too, like work colleagues."

"I see."

But let's look at what someone can infer from some of your actions," Cat continued.

"What do you mean?"

"Take your rescue of Flight 237, for example."

Supergirl nodded.

"You didn't wear your costume for that one."

"So?" Supergirl asked.

"So, it's a fair deduction that, at the very least, it caught you unprepared to use your powers that night."

"At the very least?"

"I suspect, that it's more likely, judging from your reaction to my interview questions about the earthquake and the fires," Cat replied, "that you had no plans to use your powers in such a way."

"I see," Supergirl replied.

"Which begs the question. What was so special about that plane? Or was there something special about a particular passenger?"

The Girl of Steel thought for a moment, then she replied.

"I don't mind telling you. And if you want to do an interview after this about how my first few months doing this stuff have gone, you can include this answer in it if you like. That rescue was pure chance. I just happened to be walking in the street when the plane flew overhead, and I saw its second engine explode. And I realized at that moment that there was a difference between that situation and the earthquake and the fires and other similar events. Unlike those situations, where other people were already helping by the time I heard about them, in the case of that plane, there was nobody else who could help who could get there in time. And I realized that I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I walked on and did nothing. I just had to try to help."

"But why change your mind? Why keep on helping people in trouble?"

"If you look at the incidents I've taken a hand in, you'll see that most of them were situations where nobody else with the right skill set was available or could get there quickly."

"I see. But you should also know that an alert reporter could also easily find out that the NCPD has offered you a job, as has the FBI."

'And why is that significant?" Supergirl was puzzled.

"You need to eat. Therefore you need to pay bills. And so, if you're not working for the NCPD or the FBI, you are working in a day job that is not law enforcement. What kind of day job will it be? A little thought tells me you can't possibly be a hospitality worker or a retail clerk. Or a hospital nurse, a doctor, a teacher or an accountant, because you couldn't get away from such positions to do what you do as Supergirl. No, it's far more likely that you are either self-employed or an office worker in a large corporation."

"Why do you say that?" Supergirl asked.

"Three reasons. First, self-employed people. The often work alone: many times they can set their own schedules and that means they can get away at any time, and it's not a problem so long as they deliver their tasks by their deadlines. They can also set up their media sources to reflect a broad coverage. And that's important because you haven't considered what someone can deduce from you quick arrival at incident scenes."

"What do you mean, Miss Grant?"

In the last six weeks, you responded to fifteen incidents within three minutes of those incidents first being reported either on the police band or some breaking news report. The non-police sources included CatCo, the local ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and Fox affiliates and four independents. That's quite a broad range of sources. It suggests that you're either a news junkie or someone who has access to someplace like the CatCo newsroom where all of those sources are monitored continually."

"I do keep tabs on what's going on in National City," Supergirl murmured.

"That said, I suspect you are probably not self-employed. More than most of us, I think you need to be with people, to be accepted as one of us. And if that's true, then office workers and administrative assistants are the people who can most easily disappear for a few minutes without causing a fuss. They take breaks, the run errands on other floors; they solve problems. Perfect cover for you to save the day somewhere, and return, all within a few minutes. Such a job would have a few challenges, but they can be managed. Unless you run into a few monkey wrench situations."

"What do you mean?"

"What happens if your office is monitoring the news sources I mentioned and one or more of your coworkers or your manager notices that you are always absent when Supergirl shows up?"

"That could present a problem," Supergirl replied.

"Even worse might be slipping up and using one or more of your powers in front of them."

"And I'd need some fast talking to get out of that." Supergirl suddenly realized that her boss was going somewhere with this.

"And you'd need some fast talking to get out of that. But an even worse thing can happen, and you have to make sure it doesn't."

"What's that, Miss Grant?"

"Whatever you do you can't afford to let any of your colleagues who know you as their colleague Ellen Earthling see you at close range as Supergirl. If you have to save them from something, make certain that they don't get a good look at your face."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because of that little scar by your left eyebrow. If you wear glasses, they'll distract people from it, but only if someone is looking straight at you. If that somebody's looking down, say your manager standing by your desk as you sit there, the scar will be plainly visible."

As a deeply shaken Supergirl opened her mouth, Cat raised her hand.

"Don't say a word. I'm not finished yet. I meant what I said about wanting to help you. There is a distinction between the words 'guess' and 'know' and I do not want to know what you are about to tell me. If you work in a large business, practicing such restraint now will be good practice for keeping your own manager in the dark, something you may need to keep on doing for a whole variety of reasons, which I'm sure you don't need me to elucidate."

Supergirl was clearly thinking hard, digesting what Cat was and was not saying. "You're right; I don't. So how do I minimize the fallout from my actions or my appearance?"

"The first thing we do," Cat replied, "is to set up an interview that covers your first few months in the hero business. Once we get your reason for saving flight 237 on record, nobody's going to look further. Can we do that tomorrow night? And second, you'll just have to take care who sees you close up from certain angles when you are out and about as Supergirl."

"I think tomorrow night will work for our interview. And thank you very much, Miss Grant, for suggesting that we have this conversation."

Cat smiled. "I'm always glad to help."


End file.
